


Common Hazards of the Penumbra Sector

by celinamarniss



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Legends - All Media Types, Star Wars Legends: Thrawn Trilogy - Timothy Zahn
Genre: Action/Adventure, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Coruscant, Coruscant Underworld, Echo chamber fandom, Ewok Biker Gangs, F/M, Gen, Luke and Mara spend a day in the Coruscant Underworld, Monsters, Worldbuilding, cute date ideas
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-01
Updated: 2017-08-14
Packaged: 2018-12-09 16:03:38
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 14,478
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11672454
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/celinamarniss/pseuds/celinamarniss
Summary: Luke joins Mara (and her crew) on a not-date in the Penumbra Sector to watch the popular, dangerous, andveryillegal Ewok swoop races. Trouble, as it always does, finds them.





	1. Race Day

**Author's Note:**

> Mara's swoop racing hobby was first mentioned in The Punch of Supreme Friendship. Thanks as always to frangipani, the best sounding board for all my weird ideas.

Jumba Alley had a festive feel to it that morning. The sound of shouting and chatter in a dozen languages and the smell of fried and sugared treats being sold in the many booths that lined the alley filled the air. Beings of all kinds browsed the shops and mingled in the walkway. Ithorians haggled with Gotals, Toydarians and Rodians shouted out advertisements for their wares, and _everyone_ kept an eye on the Jawas that roamed the alley.

Jumba Alley wasn’t technically an alley, though all the local residents called it that. Instead of running between buildings, the alley sprawled across an overhang that ran along the side of one of Coruscant’s cloudcutters. The alley’s overhang wrapped around a massive high-rise and hung out over a wide gap in one of the canyons that formed between the cloudcutter that rose out of the depths of Coruscant. Booths lined one side of the overhang and a railing ran along the edge that hung out over the gap. When Luke looked up, the high-rises of the city above them seemed to climb impossibly high and disappear into the sky.

The alley was one of the highlights of the Penumbra sector, a sector of mid-and-lower-level Coruscant populated by an array of alien species who had emigrated from the many hundreds of planets in the New Republic. The canyons served as the racing grounds for popular swoop bike races, and most of the crowd that gathered in the alley that day had come to see the races. It was a far cry from the polished and elegant world of the city’s upper levels, where Luke spent most of his time on Coruscant, where he and his friends and family lived and worked.

“Fresh tampias?” a Rodian vendor called out. “For you and your lady friend?”

Luke glanced over at his lady friend, who shrugged her shoulder, affecting an air of disinterest. Taking her cue, he began to turn away.  

“Two for the price of one?” the vendor offered. There were dozens of booths along the alley that sold hot food; it was a competitive business.

There was a moment of feigned consideration, and then Luke said, “We’ll take them,” and dug in a pocket of his jacket for the credits. “My treat.” The Rodian took his credits and passed him a pair of tampias, still steaming from the heater.

Mara carefully accepted a tampia from him, the outer crust hot to the touch. As he took a bite, Luke found the filling inside was actually very good, flavourful and spicy, though it probably wasn’t a good idea to think too closely about where the ingredients came from.

He took her free hand in his as they continued along the alley, Mara keeping an eye on the Berchestian and two humans who had stopped at a candy booth further down. It was hard to call the outing a date when your girlfriend brought her crew with her. Or some of her crew, anyway. Dankin and Faughn weren’t bad company, though he didn’t know them very well, and they helped to keep an eye on Ghent, who was clearly an easy mark and would’ve been robbed blind if they let him out of their sight.

Mara was on-planet more often than the rest of the crew, to fulfill her duties as Smuggler’s Alliance Liaison (which she complained was mostly datawork), and to spend time with him (complaining about datawork). It was Mara who had introduced Luke to Jumba alley and the swoop races held there, the races being a popular attraction for off-world smugglers, and she and the _Wild Karrde’s_ crew often visited the alley when they were on-planet.

She had also introduced him to the opera and dragged him along to classical concerts and art museums; Coruscant offered a wide range of entertainments, and Mara had grown up attending the most exclusive performances. At times it felt like she was trying to offer him a glimpse of her past, a version less fraught than her childhood in the Imperial Palace. These excursions had been interesting—a far cry from what has passed for entertainment on Tatooine. But it meant dressing in a stiff suit and schmoozing with self-absorbed socialites, never his favorite pastime, and all things said and done, Luke preferred Jumba alley.

Though her past had been among the glittering elite, Mara’s present was anchored in the Fringe, in places like Jumba alley where illicit trade thrived, and now, through her Smuggler’s Alliance post, she was linked to the upper levels of the New Republic government. One day he hoped she would also claim her knighthood as a Jedi, but at the moment she insisted that her work for Karrde and the New Republic took precedence.

A few paces ahead of them, Faughn had stopped in front of a stall that sold ruggers, wedged between the candy booth and a stall selling illegally-imported Hapan beauty products. The small, long-haired creatures had become popular as pets, and Ewok traders shipped them directly from the forests and plains of their home planet.

“Best product! Straight from Endor!” The Ewok vendor told them.

“Aww,” Ghent said, “They’re cute.”

“No pets on the _Wild Karrde,”_ Mara said. “Drum and Strang would try to eat it.”

“They try to eat Mara all the time and she can fight back,” Dankin said. Mara shot the Berchestian a narrow look, and he muttered, “Sorry, boss.”

A rugger with a coat of white and pale green fur flicked its ears at them and let out a trill. Another scampered acrobatically up the side of its cage, where it perched at the top, preening its long fur.

“You could buy one for your girlfriend,” Dankin suggested to Faughn.

“She doesn’t like rodents,” Faughn said as she wiggled her fingers at a rugger. Luke privately agreed that rodents weren’t meant to be _pets,_ though the ruggers seemed harmless enough. Perhaps he was biased; not everyone’s first impression of a rodent was a womp rat.

“No buy, no touch. Go, go!” the Ewok waved them away.

They continued on, killing time amoung the stalls before the main event of the morning took place: the swoop race. The race started above a set of decrepit warehouses on one end of canyon, and wound through the Penumbra sector until it came to an abrupt dead end, where the racers were required to turn sharply and make their way through the labyrinth back to the starting point. One of the qualifications for finishing the race was not ending in a fatal smear against one of the buildings that enclosed the dead end. Swoops bikes were dangerous enough, speeders that were little more than an engine on a seat, and it took a skilled pilot to navigate the hairpin turns in the city’s canyons.

The races were highly illegal and _extremely_ popular.

Further down the alley, crowds parted to make way for one of the swoop gangs competing that day as they strode proudly down the thoroughfare, skilled pilots at the top of their game.

Every one of them was an Ewok.  

The Ewoks of the Golden God gang had won the last swoop race, and they strutted through the crowd as though they were tall as Wookies, sun glinting off the sequins sewn into the gaudy golden hoods they wore. Along with the decorated hoods that indicated their gang affiliation, they wore feathers and beads, jewelry fashioned from a variety of materials, and belts bristling with weapons and tools. Other gangs would soon gather as well: the Black Moon Gang, the Forest Demons, and the Empire Killers. They were a long way from the Ewoks that Luke had met on Endor, with their simple leather hoods and wooden and bone jewelry. 

Several Ewok tribes had come to Coruscant after the planet had been claimed by the New Republic, and joined the thousands of other communities that thrived in the lower levels of the city planet. They’d adapted to the city in their own way, becoming expert swoop pilots, and holding the best and most brutal races on the planet.

“Hey, Jedi!” A Devaronian shouted across the alley after the Ewoks bikers had passed. “You know the winner?” He held up his betting ticket.

It wasn’t Luke’s face they recognized in the lower levels, it was the lightsaber he wore at his side. Coruscant had been the home of the Jedi Temple, and even after decades of Imperial propaganda people still remembered what a lightsaber signified, more so than the outer regions, where Jedi had faded into myth. Luke felt the weight of that significance. It carried with it sometimes unexpected expectations. He was often asked to arbitrate disputes or offer counsel, and he felt obligated to offer whatever aid he could when his services were called upon.

But gaming a betting pool wasn’t one of those obligations.

“Sorry, friend,” Luke called back. “The Force works in mysterious ways. If it told me that, I’d be a very rich man.”

The Devaronian laughed good-naturedly and turned back to his friends.

Mara also carried a lightsaber clipped to her belt, but on Jumba alley she had another reputation that eclipsed her visible link to the Jedi: she’d become known for participating in several Ewok races. Luke had noticed the second-glances and the whispers; riding in an Ewok swoop race gained her a certain amount of fame—or perhaps notoriety—in the lower levels.

The Black Moon gang was the next swoop gang to make their entrance. They carried long pikes, the skulls of small animals and crudely rendered replicas of the Death Star hanging from the ends. The pilots hissed and growled at the crowds, who cheerfully booed their arrival. From what Luke understood, the Black Moon gang rarely won a race, and so they’d chosen the Death Star as their symbol and cast themselves as villainous holo-characters as a way of holding the fickle audience’s attention. They still flew hard and fought dirty, those pikes often being used in the middle of a race to unseat a rival biker.

In the wake of the Black Moon gang’s parade, a single brown-furred Ewok marched along the alley, his head turning as he searched the crowd. Instead of the customary hood, he wore a leather pilot’s helmet, with holes cut in the top for his ears and the straps hanging down below his face. He carried a small bag slung sideways across his body, with a nasty looking dagger fastened to the front strap. As far as Luke could tell, Ralrk didn’t compete in the races, but he seemed to serve as some sort of intermediary or fixer, who brokered deals between the gangs.

When he spotted Mara he rushed over, the straps on his helmet flapping. She and Faughn were picking out a scarf for Faughn’s girlfriend a few booths down from where Luke and Ghent were checking out a stall filled with speeder parts procured from unknown sources. Luke couldn’t hear what Ralrk said to Mara, but she crossed her arms and shook her head. His gestures became more emphatic as he spoke to her. Luke passed Ghent-watching-duty over to Dankin and made his way across the market to Mara and Ralrk, who seemed to be in the middle of an argument.

“Slimesucker!” Ralrk spat as Luke approached. Mara appeared unmoved by Ralrk’s outburst.

“What’s wrong?” Luke asked.  

The Ewok turned to him. “The Empire Killers are begging her to join the race today,” he said in Bocce. “And she refuses! Because of some petty grudge with their chief!”

“He knows what he did,” Mara said coolly.

“What happened?” Luke asked.

Ralrk said, “Nothing!” at the same time Mara said, “Don’t worry about it.” They glared at each other.

“I’m not going to tell the sector police,” Luke said, letting his irritation bleed into his voice. “I’ve _competed_ in the races.”

“We _know,”_ Ralrk said. “That is why we aren’t asking _you.”_

Which was somewhat insulting but, Luke reflected grudgingly, understandable, considering he hadn’t even finished the only race he’d competed in. He’d stopped to rescue a pair of bikers whose swoops had collided, and by the time he'd made sure both bikers were safe, the competition was long over. He placed last, and hadn’t been invited to race again.

“He can’t race anyway,” Ralrk said, pointing at Luke and speaking to Mara as though he weren’t even there. “The Chiefs put an _azat_ on him.”

“What?” Mara snapped, suddenly dropping her disinterested pose. “You’ve _blacklisted_ him?” Which answered that question.

“Three gangs lost points!” Ralrk exclaimed. “We should have never let a Jedi race!”

“Now listen, you—”

“Mara, it’s not that big a deal,” Luke said. He didn’t really understand the world of Ewok swoop racing enough to actually mind.

“It’s an insult!” Mara insisted. They were starting to draw an audience. “An azat is going totally overboard—”

“But we want _you_ to race!” Ralrk countered. “It’s an _honor.”_

“It’s not that great an honor,” Mara said, eyeing him narrowly. “If I race, will you lift the azat on Luke?”

Ralrk laughed dismissively. “Impossible!”

“Then find another pilot.”

Ralrk cursed again, this time in Ewokese. Luke didn’t understand the language, but he got the gist. There were a few scattered gasps from the onlookers as the crowd appreciated Ralrk’s theatrics.

“You don’t have to sit out just because I can’t race,” Luke said. He suspected that she _had_ wanted to race, in spite of her feigned indifference in the sport and her outrage at what seemed to be a minor inconvenience. _He_ wanted to see her compete. He decided to throw in with Ralrk. “I think you should, Mara,” he said.

“I can’t let them insult you like that,” she insisted.

“I really don’t mind,” he said. “You don’t have to defend my honor.” He was rather charmed that she wanted to, though she probably wouldn’t appreciate him phrasing it that way.

Mara shot him an exasperated look. “It’s absurd,” she fumed. “You’re the best pilot here.” Ralrk made an exaggerated noise of disbelief and crowd murmured. “They shouldn’t be allowed get away with this.”

There was probably some subtext to the insult that he didn’t understand, but he could live with that. “But I want to see you race,” he said simply.

She studied his face, and he hoped she could read his sincerity there, and that he genuinely didn’t care about the insult. He didn’t want it to hold her back.

When that didn’t seem to sway her, he tried another approach. “Where did you place last time?” 

Her eyes narrowed at him, though he still suspected that her reluctance was partially for show. “You know we didn’t win.”

“Maybe you’ll win _this_ time.” 

She rolled her eyes. “Optimist. The Empire Killers aren’t the best team. The Forest Demons are better. And the Golden God team usually win anyway.”

She’d cracked. He could tell.

“If Mara says yes, can you talk the chief of the Empire Killers around?” Luke asked Ralrk.

“Yes, I can make the chief see reason, just watch!”

“Fine,” she said, holding Luke’s gaze. “I’ll race.”

“Ha! Yes!” Ralrk hissed. “Follow me!”

They followed him further down the alley to the wide platform where the swoop riders mounted their bikes. Dankin, Faughn, Ghent, and a good portion of the crowd that had watched the preliminary negotiations trailed behind them. The gangs had already gathered on the platform, grouped near the edge where their bikes hovered, lined up for the race. The Empire Killers wore elaborately embroidered blood-red hoods to distinguish them from the golden hoods of the Golden God Gang, the black hoods of the Black Moon gang, and the inexplicable yellow hoods of the Forest Demons.

Mara wasn’t the only non-Ewok who had been asked to race with one of the competing gangs that day. Luke spotted another human, a pair of Selonian sisters he’d seen race before, and a couple of Sneevels. Ralrk had been busy. The Ewok fixer headed straight for the Chief of the Empire Killers, a tall striped Ewok whose red hood was crowned with feathers. Ralrk accosted him in rapid-fire Ewokese to make the case for Mara racing with the team.

The answer was apparently no. The chief barked with laughter at Ralrk’s first proposal, whatever it was. It didn’t deter the Ralrk, who kept haranguing the Chief.

Whatever the chief replied in Ewokese sounded _extremely_ vulgar. There were delighted gasps of shock from some of the surrounding Ewok bikers. “She knows what she did,” he said in Bocce.

“What did she do?” Ghent whispered to Luke.

“I have no idea.”

This back-and-forth went on for a few minutes, with other members of the gang, who all seemed keen to have Mara race, chiming in to add to the debate. A light brown Ewok in a red hood shouted something and several other gang members echoed his point. From their corner of the platform, the Black Moon gang jeered at the entire spectacle, rattling their pikes at the Empire Killers.

 _“Atcha, atcha,”_ the Chief finally said. “A debt for a debt.”

Ralrk, the Chief, and the rest of the gang looked expectantly to Mara, who nodded in acquiescence. There were hoots of triumph from the gang, and a round of vigorous back slapping.

“What just happened?” Faughn asked. 

“The Ewoks prefer debts to cold hard credits,” Dankin explained. “Now that he’s agreed to Ralrk’s terms—let Mara race—Ralrk owes him a debt, and he can call it in any time, though there are these rules about what kind of debt he can call in. It’s kinda complicated. It’s almost like a currency—the richest Ewoks have the biggest collection of debts owed to them.”

“What was the problem?" Luke asked. "What happened between Mara and the Chief?”

“Look, Skywalker,” Dankin gave him a sidelong look. “I like you, mate, but she’s my _boss.”_

Luke sighed.

One of the Ewoks produced a human-sized poncho, bright red and embroidered in the same style as the Empire Killers’ hoods. He presented it to Mara, which made Luke wonder if the whole debate had been a foregone conclusion—just another performative aspect of the race. It had certainly gathered a crowd, the bystanders murmuring excitedly as Mara took off her jacket and pulled on the poncho.

“Keep an eye on Ghent,” she said as she handed him her jacket.  

“Take care of yourself out there,” Luke said as he stepped closer to kiss her. "For luck."

He had wanted to tell her he loved her—he hadn’t yet, they hadn’t been together for _that_ long; less than a year—but Luke knew how he felt, he _knew_. He just wasn’t sure she was ready to hear it from him yet.

She turned away and swung onto one of the Empire Killers’ swoops. There was a rush all along the alley as the crowd placed their final bets and claimed their spots along the railing that overlooked the race’s starting point.

“Did you get good odds?” Faughn asked Dankin. She reviewed his ticket and then said with a _tsk_ , “let me place the bets next time.”

“I could write a program that could calculate the winners,” Ghent said.

Faughn patted his shoulder. “That's not how it works. The fun is in not knowing what's going to happen next.”

Luke felt a slight tinge of jealousy as he watched Mara maneuver her swoop into place. He hadn’t been lying that he wasn’t offended at being banned, it was just that swoop racing was _fun_. He was good at it. The racing he’d done back in the canyons of Tatooine offered different hazards than the canyons of Coruscant—the very real chance of in-air collision with civilian speeders and the constant threat of law enforcement, versus the chance of disturbing a krayt dragon den or colliding with a bonegnawer.

But that jealousy was overcome with the feeling of pride that bloomed through him as he watched Mara’s swoop streak away from the starting point as the races began. The swoops screamed by the overhang where they were gathered, the crowd cheering wildly as they passed. The spectators rushed from the railing to the booths, where enterprising shopkeepers had put up portable holo-players that picked up the race on the relay of cameras that had been rigged along the course.

The crowd’s excitement rose as the bikes approached one of the first hazards of the track, called “the pinch,” where the space between the buildings narrowed, only allowing a handful of bikes at a time. The first bike through the pinch was awarded extra points, and the bottleneck meant that bikes that didn’t get through in the first wave would struggle to catch up as the race progressed. A Golden God biker made it through first, his hood rippling and glittering in the wind.

Mara’s swoop was the sixth through the pinch. Three other bikes were making the attempt at the same time, and she was forced to pull her bike up, making it through the pass as the other bikes sped through below her.

"Not bad," Dankin said, elbowing him. 

Beyond the pinch the swoops came to a section of the canyon where a series of walkways cut through the “track,” and the bikers broke into two groups, one flying above the walkways and the other below. Anticipation vibrated through the watching crowd. Many bikers used this point to knock competitors onto one of the walkways below. It wasn’t as if the races didn’t have any rules—they did, although Luke had never been able to fully understand them—but sabotaging another biker’s flight wasn’t prohibited. It was here that the Black Moon gang made use of their decorated pikes to force other bikers out of the race, and in an unexpected turn of events, two of the Black Moon bikers turned against each other, their pikes clashing together. The audience went wild. Neither biker managed to unseat the other, and they raced on, forced apart when a Golden God bike flew between them.

As Mara approached a walkway, a Forest Demon biker half threw himself out of his seat in an attempt to unseat her. An excited gasp rippled through the crowd. She rolled the bike in anticipation of an attack, landing a vicious kick that knocked the Ewok into the air. Dankin whooped and punched Luke in the arm. The Ewok’s bike careened off into the depths of the canyon and he skidded onto the walkway, stumbling shakily to his feet after a few minutes and walking off.

Several breathtaking hairpin turns later, the race turned at the dead end of the track, the bikes making the dangerous turn around and looping back. One of the Sneevels successfully managed the turn only to nearly collide with a Black Moon bike and spin off down a side passageway, out of the bounds of the race. The rest of the races made the turn, some more gracefully than others, and a few bikers who had been in the lead fell behind. 

The crowd’s excitement began to build as the swoops neared the finish line. Two bikes were neck and neck, one of the racers wearing the unmistakable hood of the Golden God Gang, the other on a Black Moon swoop. As they sped toward the finish line, the two bikes began to swerve and smash into each other in an effort to knock the other bike aside. The Black Moon bike took a heavy hit and spun out of control, the Ewok pilot flying out of his seat and into the air. In a blur of motion, Mara dove her swoop down toward the wreck, throwing out an arm to catch the Ewok midair and swing him onto the seat behind her. The Golden God biker flashed across the finish line. 

The crowd roared. “Hah!” shouted Ralrk, bolting toward the platform where the riders would disembark. There were cheers and shouts and jeers at the returning bikers. Luke, Dankin, Faughn, Ghent, and a good portion of the crowd, caught up in the general enthusiasm, followed Ralrk to the platform.

Luke couldn’t stop beaming.

Mara’s rescue of the Black Moon rider slowed her down enough that she didn’t finish with the fastest bikes; she streaked across the finish line somewhere in the middle of the pack. Two Golden God bikers had finished first, which put their gang in the lead but didn’t guarantee the team would win the day.

This is where the elaborate points system came into play; different maneuvers throughout the race netted the competing teams certain points, and the team with the most points would be declared the winners of that day’s race. There were points for certain maneuvers and demerits for others. It was a convoluted rating system that didn’t follow any logic that Luke understood. As the riders began to disembark, the clan chiefs gathered in a knot, arguing over the distribution of points. 

Mara leapt out of her swoop and raced over to the where the chiefs were huddled. “I get points for the skyline curve! And for unseating a Forest Demon biker!”

The chiefs continued squabbling, ignoring her protest and the protests from the other bikers, who gathered around, shouting out defenses and objections. It all seemed to be part of the process.

One of the chiefs held up a hand and the rest fell quiet. He pointed to Mara. “She take the points that Gunda lost when she save his life!” he announced in heavily accented Basic so that the entire crowd could understand. The Chief of the Golden God Gang shouted what sounded like a curse, threw up his arms, and stomped off. The crowd cheered at the surprise upset. 

Mara was nearly knocked off her feet as the Empire Killers swarmed her, shouting in their triumph in a garbled combination of Bocce and Ewokese.

“What’s going on?” Ghent asked. “Did we win?”

“Yeah, we won,” Luke laughed.

Ralrk elbowed him. “Now _all_ the Empire Killers owe me debts,” he cackled, delighted with his ringer.

Mara had an alarmed and bewildered look on her face that Luke recognized well from his time on Endor. He stepped up and pulled her out of the pile of celebrating Ewoks.

“Thanks,” she said, her arms at his shoulders to steady herself. 

“Hey,” he said, wrapping his own arms around her waist. “Good flying out there.” 

She frowned. “I lost points in the Trialon zone.”

“You won the race!”

“On a technicality!”

“You were magnificent,” he said.

“You’re being soppy,” Mara said, though something flickered in her face, and he knew she was pleased with the compliment although she didn’t know how to respond to it. He could sense the adrenaline thrumming through her system, and he wished that they were somewhere less public.

A small hand poked him in the side. “You! Come!” an Ewok in red hood demanded.

Another Ewok had grabbed the corner of Mara’s poncho and was tugging insistently.

“Ralrk?” Luke called out for clarification.

Ralrk popped up beside them. “You are invited to the winner’s ceremony! The Golden God Gang is not! Ha! Slimesuckers!”

“The winner’s ceremony?”

“Yes, we will take you to the village!”


	2. The Night City

It was determined that as members of Mara’s “tribe,” Luke, Dankin, Faughn, and Ghent were invited to the winner’s ceremony as well. They followed Ralrk and the rest of the Empire Killers away from Jumba Alley and down a series of walkways to a rusted spiral staircase that ran down the side of a cloudcutter. The spiral staircase led to a door fitted into the side of the structure; a door that didn't look as though it had been part of the building's original design. There was an Ewok guarding the entrance, armed with a blaster  _and_ a spear, and after a quick conversation with Ralrk in Ewokese, he let them pass.

On the other side of the door, several floors and all the apartment spaces that had once filled those floors had been demolished to make one big space inside the cloudcutter. In that space the Ewoks had built scaffolding and towers supporting a network of huts, linked together with bridges and catwalks. They had recreated the treehouses of Endor within an apartment block using the materials they could find in the city, building with a combination of scavenged wood, metal, and synth-materials. They’d even hooked long lengths of industrial wire to the ceiling so that they could swing from one hut to the next, as Luke had seen them do with vines on Endor. It was every building inspector’s nightmare, but here, on the very edge between the aboveground city and the underlevels, he was more likely to run into a Sith Lord than a legitimate building inspector. As strange as it was to find himself in an Ewok village in the middle of Coruscant, there was something familiar and comforting about the friendly chaos that swirled around them.

“We had a party after the battle on Endor, too,” he said, memories of the victory party on Endor rushing back; the communal joy of that night was like nothing else he's ever experienced.   

Mara’s face closed off. “Endor. Sure.” 

Right. Not a great point of reference for her. He squeezed her hand in apology, and let the topic drop. A part of him wished she could have been there to share that moment with him, but they had been different people then.

A minute later he came face to face with another reminder of that night. In the center of the village, the Ewoks had built a large raised platform that served as a meeting area, covered with mats woven from cast-off scraps of fabric. A carved wooden figure of a golden protocol droid stood ten feet tall on the far end of the platform, shattered stormtrooper helmets beneath its feet. He wondered if the helmets had come from Endor too. Dozens of flower chains had been hung around the wooden idol’s neck, which, upon a second glance, Luke realized were bright candy wrappers folded and cut into the shape of flowers.

“That’s _Threepio,”_ he said to Mara.

Mara nodded. “They have some sort of bizarre fixation on protocol droids—”

“No. Mara. _That’s_ Threepio. He was with us on Endor, and the Ewoks mistook him for a god. I guess they still do.”

She turned to stare at the statue. _“Threepio?”_

 _Bizarre_ didn’t even seem enough to cover the fact that the droid the Ewoks had ritualistically commemorated lived in the very same city, rushing anxiously after his niece and nephew and driving his brother-in-law up the wall.

“Do they know he lives with your sister?”

“Obviously not.” Luke imagined a crowd of Ewoks thumping on Leia’s door, demanding to carry away her protocol droid and he grinned.

They were ushered the platform and seated on the floor behind the Empire Killers, who took place of honor in front of the statue of Threepio. As soon as they were seated, the platform filled with Ewoks of all ages, crowding around the gang as they jostled for the best part of the floor to sit on. As soon as the Ewoks had found their places, the chief of the Empire Killers stood before the assembled tribes. He began to speak, a long speech in Ewokese that probably very moving and eloquent, but Luke couldn’t understand a word of it. It reminded him of certain senators who droned on in council meetings. Mara managed to maintain an expression of rapt attention throughout the long-winded monologue, but Luke wondered what was _really_ going on in her head. He sent her a mental nudge. She didn’t turn to look at him, but her expression shifted slightly and he felt her concentration sharpen as she reached through the Force, slowly extending a mental image. He shut down the connection as soon as what she was projecting became clear, an irritating flush spreading across his cheeks. Her composure broke and he could see her grin out of the corner of his eyes.

After the speech, a feast was paraded out, steaming meals wrapped in alimplast, rather than in leaves, and offered to the Empire Killers first. Mara, as an unofficial member, was served with the gang, while the rest of them waited until the second social tier was served. Several Ewoks brought out small drums and played on a corner of the platform while the feast went on, heightening the sense that he was back on Endor again.

An Ewok he didn’t know sidled up to him and introduced herself as Chenta, and began to ask him questions in the accented Bocce that some of the Ewoks spoke, and soon he and the smugglers had a small audience of curious Ewoks. Ghent was clearly delighted to be brought into the conversation. Chenta made the mistake of asking him about what he did, and he launched into an explanation of his current slicing project that was barely comprehensible to Luke, let alone a tribe of Ewoks.

He started a little when something poked him in the side, and turned to see Ralrk glaring at him. “There are some people who want to meet the Jedi,” he growled. “Outside.”

Luke exchanged a glance with Mara.

“Dankin,” she called. “Can you make sure Ghent gets back to the _Karrde?_ In one piece.”

“Sure, boss.”

“And get him out of here before the heavy drinking begins,” she said.

“Go on,” Faughn said. “We’ll take care of it.”

“Who asked to meet with us?” Luke asked Ralrk as he led them back through the Ewok village.

“Cultists,” Ralrk said. It wasn't the answer Luke had expected. “One of their people has gone missing and they ask for the services of the Jedi. But you shouldn’t go with them. They are _ktichick_ —what is the word—ktichick...creepy! Creepy slimesuckers!”

“You can’t dismiss people just because of their religious beliefs,” Luke said.

“You would say that!” the Ewok jabbed a finger at Luke. “Jedi!”

“What about the—Golden God?” 

“That’s different. The Golden God brought down the Black Moon! Results! What good is your religion! Where were the Jedi when the Ewoks vanquished the Black Moon?”

“I _was_ there, actually,” Luke said mildly.

The Ewok leaned his body back to look up at Luke. He blinked, shook his head dismissively. “Etch!” he said.

They followed Ralrk out of the cloudcutter and down the staircase to a landing that jutted out from the side of the building, where a small group of beings had gathered, all wearing hooded robes in an eye-hurting shade of yellow. Luke spotted a Sullustan and several Rodians among the hooded figures, but it was a Bothan who stepped forward to speak for the group when Luke approached them.

“Jedi,” he greeted them with a deep bow. “We thank you for granting us an audience. I am Ves’dam, high priest of the Order of the Inaga, the god of the deep.”

“May he forever bless us,” his followers chanted in unison. The effect was… unsettling. Ralrk may have had a point. But just because he found the behavior of the Order strange, didn't mean they were any less deserving of his attention. 

“It's good to meet you, Ves’dam. My name is Luke Skywalker and this is Mara Jade.” 

“Yes, we have heard of the illustrious Jedi,” Ves’dam said. “We have come to beg your assistance.”

“How can we help? Ralrk told us someone was missing?”

“Matova,” Ves’dam said, his followers murmuring the name in an eerie echo. “Our beloved Matova is missing. A Togruta woman by the name of Ashanta Lomi, who once had dealings with our Order, stole away with our dear Matova when she left. Her clan will not speak with us, and our religion forbids us to follow her to that part of the sector.”

“Which clan does she belong to?” he asked. 

“The clan of the Blue Star,” Ven’das said.  

“I know that clan,” Ralrk said. “They live in the Underworld.”

“Are you _sure_ you need Jedi to find Matova?” Luke asked the high priest.

“What price can we offer the gracious Jedi for their services?” Apparently, he’d taken Luke’s question for a haggling tactic.

“Jedi don’t—” He cut off with a wince as Mara stepped on his foot.

“Five hundred,” she said coolly.

“We are only a humble order; simple, pious creatures. We have little to offer...perhaps you would take three?”  

“We can’t— _ow_ —” Luke said as Mara leaned her weight on his toes.

“Five,” Mara insisted. “Or does your order not value the services of the Jedi?” Five hundred didn’t seem like much for a missing person, but Luke couldn’t imagine that the Order of Inaga had much in the way of credits. 

The Bothan sighed dramatically, fluttering his hands. “Of course, we will pay. Anything to find Matova.”

“Oh, okay, I guess that’s settled.” Luke took Mara’s arm. “Can you give us a minute? We need to discuss your offer.”

They walked just out of earshot. Ralrk joined them, his curiosity winning out over whatever doubts he had about the Order of Inaga.

“It wasn’t necessary to charge them to search for a missing person,” Luke said.  

Mara disagreed. “Down here everything has a price, Skywalker. It’s how things work. We want to impress on them that a Jedi’s services are valuable, and anyway, I didn’t charge anything they couldn’t pay. Besides, we don’t even know if this Matova _wants_ to be found. They may have had a good reason for leaving the Order with the Togruta. If we’re going to spend our time hunting for runaway, we might as well get some form of compensation.” 

Helping find a missing person felt as though it fell into a Jedi’s purview, but the Force wasn’t offering any indication that Matova was in any great danger. It was probably a misunderstanding of some sort, one that could be straightened out once they had a chance to talk to Matova, to pass on the Order of the Inaga’s concerns and wishes for a reunion, and to see if such a reunion was even feasible. But it would probably take some time.  

“We don’t have to go at all,” he said, “If you don’t want to.”

Mara tilted her head, an amused expression on her face. “Ah, but you’re curious now, aren’t you?”

“Well, yes, but if you’re not interested...”

She shrugged. “We didn’t have any plans for the afternoon. Why not?”

Well, he had a few things he’d like to do with her, and only her, in the privacy of their apartment, but those things had been set aside for the swoop race celebration. They could be put off a few more hours.

“And here I thought I’d have to pull out my Jedi responsibility speech,” he said with a grin. 

“I’m not a Jedi _yet,”_ she said. But she carried a lightsaber, and they both knew that that was enough for most beings in the underlevels.

“It's nothing we can’t handle, is it?” he said.

“Picking up a runaway?” She shook her head, a wry smile on her face. “You sure know how to show a girl a good time.”

“Ralrk,” Luke turned to the Ewok, who had been watching the whole exchange closely. “Would you be willing to help us look for Matova?”

“Hah! Help those slimesuckers out? You’re making a joke, yes?”

“No, I’m not joking. You know the sector much better than either of us, and we’ll need a guide to help us find the Togruta clan down there.”

The Ewok made a derisive noise. “I want to sleep soundly in a soft hammock tonight,” he said. Luke wondered if this were an Ewok aphorism or if something had been lost in translation, but he got the gist. Still a no.

“We’d offer you a cut of our fee,” Luke said.

Ralrk waved a furred hand. “I don’t need your credits.”

“Imagine the debt you could collect,” Mara said.

The Ewok squinted up at her suspiciously.

“A Jedi would owe you a debt. With a Jedi’s debt you could become a very influential Ewok.”

“I’m already an influential Ewok!” Ralrk said.

“Of course,” Mara said calmly. “But no other Ewok has a Jedi debt.”

“That’s true. It could be very valuable to have a Jedi’s debt…” Ralrk mused.

Mara let him consider the offer. Ralrk looked up at her, and then at Luke, and then back again before he finally came to a decision.

“Yes,” he said. “I will be your guide. Just so you don’t get lost and eaten by hive rats! Ha!”

“Thank you, Ralrk,” Luke said.

The Order of Inaga was overjoyed when Luke told them that they’d made the decision to hunt for Matova.

“Inaga blesses us!” they cried. 

“Where can we meet you after we’ve found Matova?” Luke asked Ves’dam.

“We live in the Yishik tunnel,” Ves’dam said. “Three _filiks_ from Black Spectrum square.”

“I know the place,” Ralrk grunted. 

“Please,” Ven’das clasped Luke’s hand. “Find Matova. We are grateful.” The hooded figures murmured words of gratitude in several languages.

“We will,” Luke said.

“We’ll _try,”_ Mara muttered, and Ralrk added something in Ewokese under his breath.

With a flurry of bows and a fluttering of hoods, the Order of Inaga left them, heading down a walkway that led to the underlevels.

Mara looked down at herself. “I should return this—” She tugged at the edge of the blood-red poncho. “Before we leave.”

“Wear it,” Ralrk said, nodding at her. “The gang would want you to do so.” 

“It’s a little conspicuous,” Mara said.

“That’s good! Everyone who sees you will know which gang will avenge you if you get knifed in an alley.”

“I’m not _going_ to get knifed in an alley.” She turned to Luke. “What did you do with my jacket?”

“I left it with Faughn.” He grimaced. “Sorry.”

She looked back at the cloudcutter, and sighed. If they went back to the village, it would cut into their time. “Fine. Let’s just get going.”

That settled, Ralrk led them down a series of hidden staircases and tunnels until they arrived in a disused warehouse. It was one of the warehouses directly below the swoop race, Luke realized.

“This way to the Underworld,” Ralrk declared, pointing to a large service turbolift. It had just opened, and mixed group of aliens poured out and headed off in different directions, each taking their own route back to the upper levels. They crossed over to the service turbolift, and Luke was just about to step into inside when a Jawa jumped forward and blocked his way. “Five credits,” he rasped. 

Ralrk turned to Luke. “You got credits?”

“Yeah, I’ve got the credits.” He dug around in a pocket and handed over the Jawa's price. It wasn't very much; he just hadn't expected to be charged. In the upper levels of Coruscant, public turbolifts were free. They were also cleaner. 

They had to wait until the Jawa had deemed the turbolift full before he pressed the sequence that activated the lift. The lift groaned as it broke into motion, something in the mechanism grinding ominously as it began to drop slowly to the levels below. Ralrk didn't mention the sound and Mara had a deliberately blank expression on her face. A part of Luke's mind automatically began to work on identifying the source of the problem, listening for clues as he had done with his own ships over the years, even though he knew it was a useless exercise. The lift finally came to an abrupt stop with no warning at all, shuddering as the gears ground to a stop, and as soon as the doors opened the Jawa began to hustle people out.

They stepped off the turbolift onto a bustling plaza. They were in the undercity, the lowest regions of Coruscant, where an entire second city lay kilometers under the constructed surface of the of the city above. Sunlight never reached the lower levels, which were lit by a variety of artificial lights that ranged from over-bright to practically non-existent.

It always shocked him how large the undercity was, the few times he’d visited before. There was a huge open space between the level on which they stood and the ancient roof of the undercity, which supported the city above. Stunted high-rises grew from the floor and hung like stalactites from above, the lights from many windows gleaming in the cave-like gloom. Some people called it the Night City. It was a whole world enclosed in ferrocrete and steel.

There was something disconcerting about being trapped under kilometers of city.

Mara glanced over. She must have picked up on his mood.

“I miss the sky,” he said.

“Flyboy,” she scoffed, her tone affectionate, even if her comment was somewhat condescending.

“Does it bother you?”

“Not really.” She shrugged a shoulder. “I've been coming to the Night City since I was a teenager. It feels different now, though. I can… sense more.” She was more in touch with the Force now, even if she was still learning to use it confidently.

The plaza directly in front of the lift was ringed with gambling dens, where the smell of cigarra smoke was thick, and through grimy windows they could see partons huddled over their cards and dice. A reprogrammed KX-Imperial security droid loomed over the entryway to one gambling hall, silhouetted against flashing neon lights. The underlevel casinos were interspersed with clubs and bars, and a variety of establishments offering thrills that weren’t legal above the sheets of durasteel. Humans and aliens of all kinds spilled out of the bars and drunkenly stumbled across the plaza, prime targets for the pickpockets and thugs who called the Night City their home. 

Although the vendors on Jumba Alley dealt in illicit goods and operated on the fringes of legality, there hadn’t been the same sense of seedy desperation that permeated the undercity, so thick that it felt like he could taste it. The underworld made places like Mos Eisley look like upstanding towns.

A human with an old-fashioned exposed-metal prosthetic arm lounging against a wall turned a calculating eye on them, and Luke brushed his mind with the suggestion to turn away and mind his own business. Mara sensed the ripple in the Force glanced over, an eyebrow lifted inquiringly. Luke opened his shielding to show her the pattern he wove around the three of them, projecting a subtle Force-enhanced suggestion to any nearby sentients to ignore the two human and the Ewok. It was a simple technique, a type of Force illusion, far less complicated than the layers of protective deflection he knew that Mara could weave in her own mind. It wouldn’t fool anyone actively looking for them, but might divert the interest of casual pickpockets and drunks looking for a fight. 

They were an odd-looking group as it was. Perhaps two humans and an Ewok traveling together wasn’t _that_ strange a sight in the underlevels, but Mara stood out in her red poncho and anyone carrying a lightsaber was hardly inconspicuous. Ralrk, who would probably stand out in the higher levels of the city, could pass unnoticed here. The Ewok led them across the plaza and into the labyrinth of streets and alleyways that wound through the underlevels. He appeared as familiar with the undercity as he was the ins and outs of Jumba Alley. He navigated the Penumbra Sector as though he’d been born there.

“How long have you lived on Coruscant?” Luke asked him.

“Five years ago,” Ralrk said. “More or less. By your calendars.” He sniffed, as though Coruscant timekeeping wasn’t much to speak of.

“Why did you leave Endor?”

“Why did I leave the Home Forest? I left because—” Ralrk trailed off, and Luke wondered if he was struggling to find the right words in Bocce or Basic to express the feeling of leaving the only home you knew to set out into the uncertain galaxy.

“...It was boring.”

Luke laughed. “I wanted to leave my home planet for the same reason. But I ended up leaving because my family had died and I felt I needed to join the Rebellion.”

“Did stormtroopers kill them?” Ralrk asked. Stormtroopers were still the face of the Empire to many citizens of the galaxy, including the Ewoks.

“They did.”

“Slimesuckers,” Ralrk cursed. “Was that your reason too?” he asked Mara.

“No, I was raised on Coruscant,” Mara said, shifting to the side to let a Toydarian flap past her. “Not here, in the upper levels. But I used to come down here, to the lower levels… before.” Before the Emperor’s death. What Luke knew of her life back then was a series of rough sketches and brushes with intense emotions that often erupted at unexpected times. 

“Was it part of your training?” he asked.

“Not really. I _was_ trained to use whatever means to collect information, and that meant knowing how to make contacts on the Fringe, so knowing where to find people down here was useful. But I also went to the lower levels to just—get away, to get in a fight. It sounds stupid now.”

“It doesn’t,” Luke assured her. Every aspect of her life had been under the control of the most powerful Sith in the galaxy, and blowing off a little steam in the Coruscant underworld was an understandable release. “I use to go out and shoot womp rats.”

Mara rolled her eyes. “That’s not the same thing.” 

“Oh, I don’t know, it seems a little bit the same to me—”

“Did you eat the womp rats?” Ralrk interrupted.

“Sometimes,” Luke admitted. “They make a good stew.” Mara wrinkled her nose. “I’ll make it for you sometime.”

“I’ll pass, thanks,” Mara said.

The gambling halls had given way to spice dens, and it was clear that many of the sleazier establishments doubled as brothels. One vice exchanged for another. Luke pulled his mental shields higher, feeling the brush of many minds that had been altered by the narcotic. It could be disconcerting, and he wanted to stay sharp. The alleys were still awash in neon, and the clubs in this part of the city were just as popular as those in the gambling quarter.

“Don’t get near _any_ of these slimesuckers,” Ralrk warned. 

“Hey, human lady, you and your boyfriend interested in a glitterstim hit?” A human spice-pusher leaned out of a doorway, his keen interest in collecting customers overriding the effects of Luke’s Force-suggestion.

“Glitterstim? Here?” Mara scoffed. “Have you been sampling your wares?”

“Our glitterstim is pure, I swear!”

“No, thank you.”

“How about some for the little furry guy? That could be funny!”

Ralrk bared his teeth. “Eat dirt, slimesucker.”

“Come on, let’s keep going,” Luke said, urging Ralrk along before someone got stabbed. Luke was sure that the nasty-looking serrated dagger Ralrk carried wasn’t just for show. They moved on, the spice-pusher still calling cajolingly after them.

It had drawn the scrutiny of the rest of the street, and Luke could feel bright sparks of attention focus on them, his Force illusion broken like a spell. There was a shout, and a figure burst out of the doorway of a club and rushed toward them. Luke immediately moved to place himself between their attacker and Ralrk, though the Ewok drew his dagger and looked eager to defend himself. Mara stepped forward to meet the man who was rushing them, her leg lashing out in a forward kick that hit him midsection and knocked him onto the pavement. She kicked a knife out of his hand and pinned him down with a knee, holding a vibroblade to his throat.

Ralrk leapt around Luke and pointed his own dagger at the man. “Ha! Try that again, slimesucker!”

“Kriff! You kriffing—” the man on the ground gasped, winded from the blow. “You owe _me_ money, you kriffing—”

 _“What?”_ Mara said, her face twisting in confusion. “I’ve never met you before.”

“Yeah you have, you kriffing _bounty hunter,”_ the man snapped. “You owe me for that tip I gave you a _month_ ago.”

“I’m not a bounty hunter.”

The man laughed. “Sure you’re not. Let me the kriff up, Diza.”

“That isn’t my name,” Mara said. She didn’t budge as he tried to buck her off. “I’ve never seen you before.”

Other passerbys began to gather around them, drawn by the commotion and the possibility of further violence.

“Think you can get out of it just by pretending—”

“I don’t think that’s Diza,” one of the onlookers said. Mara glanced up at the speaker, a Twi’lek, who took a hard look at her face. “I don’t think it’s her.”

Someone else laughed. “You got the wrong girl, Rhul.”

He stopped thrashing. Mara slowly moved off of him and stood, allowing him to rise. He wriggled back awkwardly away from Mara and Ralrk before struggling to his feet.

“You _look_ like Diza Lerik,” he muttered. “Kriffing bounty hunters.”

“I’m not a bounty hunter,” Mara insisted.

“Yeah, she does,” someone else said. “Diza doesn’t have a pet Ewok, though.”

“Say that again, slime—”

Luke put a hand on Ralrk’s shoulder before he could launch himself at the crowd. “It was all a misunderstanding,” he said, allowing the Force to reverberate through his words. “We’ll just be on our way.”

There were some disappointed murmurs among the onlookers, who began to drift away. Their attacker, Rhul, stalked off, though he kept looking back as though he expected Mara to suddenly turn into Diza Lerik as soon as he was out of sight. Luke kept an eye out until all the beings on the street who had taken an interest in the altercation had let their focus drift back to the usual attractions offered in this corner of the undercity.

“I would have cut his throat for insulting you,” Ralrk offered as he sheathed his dagger.

“Thank you,” Mara said, straightening her poncho.

Luke looked at her, his brow furrowing. “For calling you a bounty hunter?”

“I’m _not_ a bounty hunter,” Mara said. “I’m a smuggler. I’ve never _been_ a bounty hunter.”

“I don’t see the difference.”

Mara and Ralrk both shot him an exasperated look, and he nearly cracked.

“It’s a matter of principles—” Mara began, her lip curling in disgust.

Ralrk nodded in agreement. “No loyalties. Untrustworthy slimesuckers.”

“Bounty hunters don’t honor the social contracts of the Fringe; they don’t have a code,” Mara said. “They ally with Hutts and Imperials—the B23-1-11 permit system _alone_ —” The straight face he was trying to keep slipped a little, and she’d noticed. _“What?”_

“Mara,” he said. “The first time we met you helped _kidnap_ me _for a bounty._ ”

“That wasn’t the same thing,” she said. “And anyway, it wasn’t my decision. _I_ didn’t want to collect the bounty.”

“No, you wanted to kill me.”

“Yes, that’s different,” she said. “You were a target, and that was— _different.”_ He grinned at her. “Whatever,” she said and turned and stalked down the street.

Ralrk had to jog to keep up with her. “This way,” he called, waving toward a side street.

They began to pass less flashy establishments, clubs giving way to shops that sold exotic items that couldn’t be procured legally in the city above and shops that sold everyday goods for the people who lived in the undercity. Around another corner, they were greeted with a line of butcher shops that hawked the meat of animals that ran wild in the underlevels, their displays lined with slabs of meat, neat piles of organs, and intestines hanging like tentacles. One booth proudly displayed a row of Rancor teeth, and Luke spared a thought for the creature who they’d been taken from, probably raised in captivity like the beast at Jabba’s, its life short and unpleasant.

The building they were looking for was located one block behind the row of butcher shops. A small, faded blue star stenciled on the wall beside the door was the only thing that distinguished it from any other door on the block. If they hadn’t been guided here, Luke knew they would have never found the place.

“There! The Clan of the Blue Star!” Ralrk pointed at the door, and Luke knocked. 

The Togruta who answered held a small child balanced on her hip. “What do you want?” she said.

“We’re looking for Ashanta Lomi,” Luke said. “We have a few questions to ask her.”

She looked them up and down, grunted, and then waved them through the door.

“This way,” she said, and they followed her.

Like the Ewoks, the Togrutas had made the entire floor of the building their own. Beyond the door, the walls were painted in bright colors, rooms furnished with traditional Togruta wickerware and floors covered with woven mats. The furnishings look didn’t new, and Luke wondered how long the Togruta community had lived there. Had they been driven belowground by Palpatine’s xenophobic policies, or had they first come to Coruscant long ago, and once they’d established themselves in the underworld, remained there for generations?

Unlike the Ewoks, the Togrutas lived in separate, if closely connected apartments. They passed an open door off the main hallway where several Togrutan men sat playing sabbac and smoking cigarras; behind another door, they could hear a couple in the middle of a loud argument. A group of children came running by them and disappeared around a corner, so focused on their own play that they didn’t even look at the visitors. 

Their guide led them to a particular door, knocked, shrugged, and left them there without saying another word. 

A few minutes later, the door was flung open and Ashanta Lomi glared out at them, her plump face framed by two beautifully patterned lekku. “What do you want?”

“We’ve been sent by the Order of Inaga—”

“You came for Matova, didn’t you?” she interrupted. “I knew they’d send someone, but I didn’t expect humans; you’re upper-level types, too, aren’t you?” She made a sort of hissing tsk-sound. “Well, that’s a surprise.”

“We are, but—” 

“And an Ewok too! I didn’t expect that at all!”

“We’re—”

“What are you waiting for? Come in.” She moved away from the door so that they could enter the small living room of her personal quarters. “I told Ves’dam I was done with this whole business once I fulfilled my part of the agreement. Make sure he _knows_ that all my debts are paid.”

“Of course,” Luke said, nonplussed. “We can pass on the message—”

“I don’t know why I agreed to this in the first place! Don’t ask me what he’s up to this time, I don’t know. All he ever says is that _Inaga wills it.”_ She pointed toward a door at the back of the room, and when Luke and Mara didn’t immediately move to open it, waved her arm a “go on,” gesture. “Matova is in there. That’s what you came for, isn’t it?”

Luke exchanged a look with Mara, who shrugged. Ralrk just watched the entire exchange as if it were his favorite holo.

Luke went to the door and pressed the release button. It slid opened and the light flickered on, illuminating a small closet, a tiny figure crouched on the floor in the middle of the room.

It was a rugger. It yawned and stretched, shaking its long golden fur, blinking in the light and whistling inquiringly at them. It was the most beautiful rugger he’d ever seen.

“That is the Matova the cultists want,” Lomi said.

 _“That’s_ Matova?”

 _“Shavit,”_ Mara said. “We wasted a whole _kriffing day_ searching for a _pet.”_

 


	3. Sacrifices

“He sent us after a _pet,”_ Mara fumed as they made their way through a narrow alley in the depths of the Night City. Something dark dripped from above and spattered on her boot and she scowled. “I should have charged him seven.”

Ralrk cackled. “I told you not to trust those slimesuckers! Should have asked for a debt!”

“Debts aren’t valid currency,” Mara argued.

Matova chirped as though it agreed with Mara, who glared over at the rugger in the cage that Luke was carrying. It seemed unperturbed at being transferred through the underlevels, occasionally whistling inquiringly at him or at passerbys.

“Sent after a _pet,”_ she muttered again.

She obviously didn’t consider pet retrieval a suitable use of their time. It was probably something that Luke wouldn’t have put on the list of tasks and services a Jedi could be expected to perform either. But people could be strange about their pets, and Matova must have had value to the community if they sought out Jedi and were even willing to pay Mara’s price. But he couldn't blame Mara for feeling as though the Order had taken advantage of them.

“I’m sorry about all this,” Luke said. He moved aside to let a group of cloaked Ongree pass.

“It’s fine,” Mara sighed. “We’ll drop off the rugger, get the kriff out of this hellhole, and then go home and… take a really hot shower,” she finished, a wistful tone in her voice.

“Together?” A shower sounded nice, a shower _with_ Mara sounded even better.

“Hmmm.” Her hum was non-committal, but the small smile at the corner of her mouth was a promise.

It took a while to make their way from the Togruta enclave to the part of the sector where the Order of Inaga made their home. They descended even further into the lower levels, further away from anything resembling upper-level conveniences. The route lead through the body of a massive pipe, once part of the network that pumped water down from Coruscant’s polar caps, now fallen into disrepair and reclaimed as a passageway through the underlevels.

They passed fewer and fewer people the deeper they traveled into this particular corner of the sector. Luke was glad that fewer citizens were forced to make their homes in such dismal conditions, but still felt sympathy for those that did. The Ewoks and the Togrutas had made the best of their situations with the limited resources they had, but not everyone in Coruscant was so lucky. There was poverty and desperation down here. It wasn’t remotely surprising to Luke that a cult like the Order of Inaga had thrived in the lower levels. He might not know much about the Order’s beliefs, but he understood the need to have something to believe in. And what little they had—which could be something as modest as a single rugger—was precious to them. It was one of the reasons he didn’t mind chasing all over the Penumbra Sector for Matova. They’d lost a day, a small thing in order to help out a neglected community.  

Matova gave a high pitched shriek as a larger rodent, twice the size of a rugger, darted across the walkway in front of them and disappeared through a crack on the other side of the pipe. Luke couldn’t begin to guess what species it had been. It had more eyes than he’d expected.

Ralrk, who had grabbed ahold of his dagger, made a noise of disappointment and looked as though he wanted to crawl after the creature, but he restrained himself with a resigned look over his shoulder at Luke and Mara. Luke knew that sewer rats were fairly harmless compared to the _other_ feral animals that lived in the abandoned corners of the underlevels. Sometimes those creatures preyed on the people of the Night City, and were hunted in return; the butcher’s shops near the Togruta clan’s dwelling were proof of that.

Matova continued to chitter anxiously. “Hey, calm down,” Luke soothed the distressed animal. “It’s okay. We’re not going to let anything hurt you.”

Mara sighed, eyeing the rugger as though she’d _like_ to feed it to the underworld rats. “Let’s get that thing back as fast as possible.”

Ralrk led them unerringly to a  dimly lit alley off the pipeway that led to the commune where the cult lived. It was impossible to guess what purpose the buildings in this quarter of the undercity had been built for, the structures stacked haphazardly on top of each other, abandoned and reclaimed over and over again. Centuries of grime coated the walls and gave the impression that little else held the decrepit edifice together. The wall around the entryway to the commune was painted in the same garish yellow as the hoods the Order wore, the curling swirls of paint a sad attempt at artistic flourish. It didn’t have a door, but they must have triggered an alarm system or alerted a guard, because several hooded figures hurried into the room as soon as they crossed the threshold.

“Matova!” a hooded Sullustan exclaimed. “Come, this way!”

The interior of the commune was dark and cramped as well, with winding, dingy hallways. Here and there the spiraling yellow symbols of the Order had been painted on the walls, bright splashes of incongruous color. The corridor the Sullustan guided them through finally opened up into a large common area where several small groups of people huddled together in conversation.

A gasp rippled across the room. “Matova! Matova returned!” Hooded figures rushed forward, relieving him of Matova’s cage and holding it aloft. He felt the news of the rugger’s return ripple through the commune, excitement passing from person to person. Members of the Order began to pour into the room from shadowed doors set in the walls of the common room, quickly filling the space. There were more people living here than Luke expected.

The cultists broke into frenzied chanting as the rugger’s cage was held high above the crowd and paraded across the room, the trilling cry of the animal lost in the noise of the mob. Luke was abruptly brought back to that day on Endor when the Ewoks had adopted Threepio as a deity; the same feeling of reverence swept around the room. Wariness prickled up his spine. He shifted closer to Mara. She touched his arm and pointed out Ves’dam across the room.

“We should go,” he said.

She shook her head. “I’m not letting him get out of paying us.”

Mara began work her way toward the high priest, and he followed, not wanting to lose her in the crowd. Fighting against the chanting cultists was a slow process, but she stood out her red poncho. He’d completely lost sight of Ralrk in the sea of yellow hoods.

“Jedi!” Ves’dam called as they approached. “You returned Matova to us! The Order exults in your triumph!”

“We’ll take our payment now,” Mara said.

“Ah, yes, your reward,” the high priest said. “This way, Jedi.” He raised his voice so that it carried across the room. “It is time for the Jedi to receive their reward!”

Luke’s sense of unease ticked up a notch. They needed to collect their pay and get out of there, quickly. He exchanged a glance with Mara, his trepidation mirrored in her face. In spite of their misgivings about the cult, they followed the Bothan, who beckoned them down the narrow hall. Luke was aware that members of the Order followed behind them, shadowing their leader even within their own community.

The smell hit them first, a malodorous stench so overpowering he almost staggered backward; the smell of sewage and decay filling up the enclosed space. He could hear Mara gagging. He hesitated, and felt a gentle but insistent nudge from behind, and turned back to see the corridor filled with yellow hooded figures, urging him forward. None of them seemed surprised by the smell. 

“What’s that smell?” he choked out, trying not to breathe through his nose. “What happened here?” Had a sewer broken nearby? 

One of the cultists, the Rodian, said something he couldn’t make out, other than the repeated use of the word “Inaga.”

“You get used to the smell,” murmured a Bothan he didn’t recognise, “You will be in the Presence soon.”

They couldn’t go back without forcing their way through, so they moved forward. At the end of the corridor was a small room which opened onto a large circular space. As they got closer, Luke realized that the large space beyond the room was a giant pit, and the floor of the room ended in a platform that hung over the pit. Luke and Mara came to a stop in the doorway, but the mass of people behind them pushed them forward, toward the platform, where Ves’dam perched at the edge, his arms raised above his head. Over the edge was a garbage pit, a sink filled with sewage and waste. Spotlights had been rigged around the edges of the pit, illuminating the heaps of detritus floating in fetid liquid.

As they looked down, a single eyestalk rose out of the water at blinked up at them. Luke knew what that meant, even before the huge body of the creature became clear in the in the pit below, many tentacles sliding through the sewage and creeping up the walls of the pit.

Dianoga.

“Inaga! Great God of the Deepness!” the high priest intoned. “We have brought you the ultimate sacrifice for your many teeth to feast upon: the Jedi!”

“What?!”

“What the kriff—”

“They passed the test we had set them and proven themselves worthy to grace your holy maw!” Ves’dam shouted. His words were answered by the deep roar of the creature, booming through the enclosed space. 

“Ahhhhh!” the cult moaned as a long tentacle whipped out of the sewage below and lunged for the ledge, coming just short of the edge of the platform. They began to chant: “Inaga, Inaga, Inaga!”

Suddenly the crowd was pushing them forward, toward the edge of the platform. Luke pushed back, trying to force his way back toward the entrance, but the short distance was packed with chanting cutists. It dawned on him, as he tried to push against the crowd, that whole hunt for Matova had been a ruse. This is what the cultists had in mind for them. Human sacrifice.

 _“Fierfek!”_ he heard Mara curse, and then the bright blue glow of her lightsaber lit up the cramped space. The cultists closest to her lept back in surprise, shouting. Mara slashed at the crowd, careful not to actually cut through any of the beings close to her, though Luke knew that her reservation wouldn’t last long.

The cultists closest to him became bolder, a dozen arms reaching out to press against him, herding him closer and closer to the drop. “You don’t want to do this,” he said, trying to reach through the religious frenzy that had seized the mob. “Don’t—” It was futile. They were past any attempts at reason, past the point when a mental nudge through the Force might have given them pause.

He felt a tug at his ankle, and before he could react, a tentacle had yanked him off his feet and pulled him toward the pit.

“Luke!” Mara shouted.

She shut off her lightsaber and caught his hand before he went over the edge. He wrapped the Force around her, using her body to anchor them both to the floor of the ledge, his own body half dangling in the air above the pit. Mara's face was washed white by the harsh lighting and he could see her grimace, gritting her teeth as she struggled to hold on to him. 

And then the cultists were on them, shoving and pulling at Mara. She shouted with rage as her grip on the floor slipped and she began to slide across the ledge. Luke made one last attempt with the Force to push the cultists back, but it didn’t work. They both went over the edge and fell down into the pit.

Luke hit the water and went under, momentum pulling him down before he kicked upwards and broke the surface of the water, sputtering. He fought to pull some unidentifiable waterlogged piece of garbage—netting or fabric or leather—off of his face. It came away with a squelching noise. The smell was _worse_ than the trash compactors on the Death Star and _Chimaera,_  a noxious rotting stench. Luke wondered how many other sacrifices had been tossed to the dianoga. He blinked water and slime out of his eyes and looked around for Mara. 

The pit was lit by the glare of the spotlights, the heaps of trash bobbing in the murky water casting stark shadows in the bright light, making it hard to get his bearings. The body of the dianoga writhed through the sewage, churning the dark sludge and sending debris swirling around him and smacking into his body. 

Their lightsabers were useless in the water. He heard a single shot as Mara’s holdout went off, and then a splash that didn’t bode well for her weapon. He twisted around in the direction of the sound, and then ducked back into the water, narrowly avoiding a tentacle that whipped toward his head.

Surfacing again, he caught sight of Mara, who was slashing at the creature with a knife as she struggled not to sink into the sewage. The dianoga’s blood splattered over the water and the creature bellowed, striking back with a powerful blow of one of its limbs. He shouted as Mara got knocked under the water, but she resurfaced quickly, though the knife had slipped out of her hand and disappeared into the muck.

Another tentacle smacked Mara closer to the center of the pit. As she struggled to stay above the water, Luke realized it was playing with her, herding her closer to the fanged maw at the center of the creature’s body. Luke frantically shoved floating wreckage out of the way, fighting his way toward her. She cried out, an angry, wordless sound, as a tentacle wrapped around her. 

“Mara,” he shouted, throwing an arm toward her as the dianoga towed her across the water. She caught his hand and he pulled her into his arms, wrapping his body around her and wrapping around her in the Force, holding her within a bubble of protection against the power he was about to unleash.

It burst out of him, a pulse of energy that ripped through the water and through the pit, the blast that stunning everything within range. The shockwave rebounded against the walls, debris sloshing back and forth as they sunk beneath the sewage, still clinging to each other. He sensed the dianoga blink out of unconsciousness and the tentacle wrapped around Mara fall away. He had to let go of her so that they could both kick their way back to the surface. She pushed a heap of garbage out of the way as she tread water beside him. 

“What did you do?” she asked, craning her neck around to stare at the limp tentacles floating in the muck around them. 

“I stunned it. I thought it would be the quickest way to incapacitate it.”

“And anything else in the vicinity,” Mara said, looking up at the ledge, where the cult had gone completely silent.

“That’s a... side effect,” Luke said.

“But an effective one. I don’t think they’ll be very happy we killed their god.”

“I didn’t kill it.”

“Why not?”

“I didn’t need to.”

“It tried to eat us! They were _feeding_ people to it.”

“...That’s true. But—”

“Luke,” Mara interrupted. “I don't care. I want to go home.” Her hair was plastered to her head, dripping and grimy, and ichor ran down her face in streaks. She looked about as bad as he felt.

“Me too.” He glanced around at the dark walls of the pit, covered with slime and mold and Force-knew what. He didn’t see any obvious way out. He doubted their water-logged comms would work this deep in the underlevels.

“Kriffing. _Slimesucking._ Cults,” Mara cursed.

_“Ee Choya!”_

There was a shout from above, and they looked up to see a furred face staring down at them. “What mess did those ktichick slimesuckers get you into?” Ralrk shouted down.

“Ralrk!” Luke shouted up. “Where have you been?”

“I hid when the chanting began. It’s better to find out what’s going on where they can’t see you.” Ralrk shook his head condescendingly. “Didn’t I tell you? Never trust cultists.”

“Yeah, well, we didn’t know they worshipped a dianoga!”

“Did you kill that big tentacle demon yourselves?” Ralrk asked.

“It isn’t dead yet.”

“Keeping it fresh! Good call!”

“Well…”

“The village will feast well tonight! This is better than a Jedi debt!” He nodded, pleased. “I’ll find you some rope and pull you out. Don’t go anywhere!” he said, and disappeared.

“Where would we go?” Luke said to the empty air.

He turned back to Mara, but she’d swum away from him, toward a large floating hunk of trash that Luke eventually identified as the chassis of an old speeder. She pulled herself up onto the half-submerged speeder, and then helped pull him up onto the makeshift raft after he’d paddled over.

He flopped down onto his back beside her. The adrenaline was beginning to fade, and he was starting to feel every scrape and bruise. His ankle hurt.

Mara sat on the edge of the speeder, wringing water out of her hair. Her clothes were dark with sludge and she’d lost the gang poncho somewhere in the pit. She looked down at her dripping lightsaber in dismay.

He reached out and squeezed her hand. “I love you, Mara.” The slime that covered their hands squished together.

“Ugh,” she said.  

\- -

\- -

“Isn’t she _darling?”_

Luke looked up at Countess Elispor’s comment, tearing his eyes away from the pampered-looking rugger draped across her left arm, its long white fur hanging down the front of the Countess’s gown. He hadn’t realized he’d been starting.

“Imported all the way from Endor!” The rugger on her arm chirped in alarm as she bounced it up and down. “You wouldn’t _believe_ how much I paid for her!”

“No, I wouldn’t,” Luke said.

He didn’t _want_ to know what the elite of Coruscant were paying for exotic pets. It was probably enough to feed a family in the underlevels for months. Not to mention he knew a certain stand on Jumba Alley where ruggers were sold at a fraction of what the Countess Elispors of Coruscant were paying.

“It’s all about who you know,” she told him with a wink. “I could give you a name, but only in the _strictest_ of confidence.”

“That’s very kind, but no.”

She then gave a dramatic gasp, her hand flying to his arm. “Oh, but you were _at_ the Battle of Endor! Does my dear little Tooktook remind you of that time?” She leaned, eager for details.

“Not… really,” he managed.

He felt Mara’s elbow brush his side, a discreet cue. He was supposed to make nice with the party’s hostess, not stare suspiciously at her pet and act standoffish. Endor. Right. He launched into a well-rehearsed soundbite that he’d recited countless times over the years. The Countess, a Coruscanti socialite with some sort of connection to the Kuat Shipyards that he didn’t quite understand, listened to his story with a rapt look on her face.

The gathering was a formal one, the top members of the New Republic’s business interests socializing over cocktails and gourmet treats. Mara had been invited due to her role as the government’s Smuggler’s Alliance Liaison, and Luke was there for Mara.

When Luke had finished his story, the Countess asked, “Have _you_ been to Endor, _Liaison_ Jade?” Luke didn’t miss the subtle emphasis on the word “Liaison.” It felt like an insult. The question was likely insulting as well, an attempt to expose the fact that Mara hadn't served in the Rebel Alliance. At least the Countess hadn't tried to call her a bounty hunter. 

Mara flashed a smile so insincerely sweet that it made his teeth hurt. “Only once, Countess, and I was only in the system briefly. I didn't have the chance to visit the planet. This was during the Thrawn Crisis, though the circumstances are classified, of course.” He still wasn’t quite used to the tone her voice took at occasions like these. It was a mask, a performance, and the deception unsettled him, even as he respected her ability to slip into a role.

There was still a certain social cache attached to any involvement in the Thrawn crisis, and Mara offered just enough information to drive a gossip crazy. The Countess straightened, turning her attention more fully toward Mara, sizing her up. “How _fascinating,_ my dear,” she said. “I simply _long_ to hear about your organization’s contribution to the campaign.”

Mara launched into a speech he recognized as an abbreviated account of the Smuggler’s Alliance’s involvement in the Thrawn Crisis. She’d managed to bring the conversation around to her suit her main reason for being at the party: to promote the Smuggler’s Alliance, and more discreetly, Karrde’s organization. All under the guise of telling a war story to a socialite. There were rules here too, a web of unspoken societal expectations as complex as the rules that governed the lower levels, and frankly, just as mysterious to farm kid from Tatooine.

He wondered what Ralrk would make of the Countess. He’d probably try to finagle a debt of some kind out of her. In a way, he mused, the display of posturing the Coruscanti elite performed wasn’t that dissimilar to the theatrics of an Ewok gang; certain types of performance resulted in certain outcomes. It was a theory, anyway, and imagining the well-coiffed well-to-do of Coruscant among the gangs of the Penumbra Sector was something to entertain him while Mara worked the room. It was a performance worlds away from her turn as a daredevil swoop racer. Only he knew that the elegant deep-blue gown she wore covered a string of bruises that started at her shoulder and wrapped around her torso where the dianoga had gripped her. 

Luke watched as a Chandra-Fan in a sharp suit approached them and then abruptly veered off and head in the opposite direction. It had been _days,_ and after countless showers and decontamination scrubs the faintest whiff of sewage still clung to them. Most humans couldn't sense the faint smell, though there were several alien species that kept to the far end of any room that he and Mara entered. There were plenty of beings who didn’t notice, and throughout the evening they moved around the room, from conversation to conversation, discussing business ventures and shipping regulations, and a lot of other things Luke barely understood. The upper levels of Coruscant might have been a lot cleaner, and smelled a _significantly_ better, but the lower levels made up for that in excitement.

Too much excitement, sometimes.

The Ewoks had reported that the Order of Inaga had vanished. Luke suspected that they'd simply moved to another part of the undercity. There were plenty of places a cult could establish itself, plenty of lost people looking for something to believe in, and plenty of monsters to worship in the darkness of the Night City.

The Ewoks had eaten the dianoga. It wasn't exactly the sort of glamorous adventure a military hero could use to wow the elite of Coruscant, though Han and Leia had enjoyed it. 

After a few more hours of complimenting strangers and listening to complaints, they were able to make their farewells and head for the door. They were collecting their coats in the hall when someone called out to them.

“Sir! Master Skywalker Sir!” A silver protocol droid shuffled toward them, holding out a box. “The Countess Elispor wishes you to have a parting gift.”  

_Oh, no. No, the box was too small._

At his side, Mara came to the same conclusion, her eyes going wide and her head whipping in his direction.

“The Countess only bestows gifts of the finest quality—” Luke was only half listening as the protocol droid prattled on. He lifted the box’s lid. A tiny rugger blinked up at him, gave a soft whistle and waved its white tail. It was only a baby.

They both began to protest at the same time.

“The Countess is very generous, but—”

“We couldn’t possibly accept—”

“Oh, but you must accept. A gift from the Countess is a great honor, a token of her esteem.” The droid pushed the box into his hands. It gave them a stiff bow and shuffled away before Luke could return the box.

“We can’t have a pet,” Mara hissed at him. “What would we do with it?”

“I’m sure Ralrk will take care of it for us while we’re away,” Luke said. “We’ll name it Matova.”

Mara glared at him. “We are _not_ naming it Matova. And Ralrk would probably eat it.”

“Well, that would solve our problems.”

She tried to bite back her smile.  

The baby rugger was attempting to scale up the inside of the box, its tiny claws scrabbling on the sides. “Maybe if I give him a rugger, he’ll put in a good word so that I can race again someday,” Luke said.  

She reached out and touched his wrist so that he looked up her. “You don’t have to,” she said quietly. “I already spoke to the chiefs. They’ve lifted the azat. You’re welcome to race the next time we go down-level.”

She dropped her gaze down and to the side, refusing to look directly at the smile that spread across his face. It wouldn’t have been a small thing to convince the chiefs to lift the azat—they hadn’t been moved when she won the race or when the tribes had collected the remains of the dianoga. She must have offered them a significant debt, and all so that he could join the races again. He'd never expected such a gift. 

“Could we race together?”

“Yes.” She made a sharp, decisive nod.

“I’d like that.”

“As long as you can keep up.” She gave him a stern look. “Next time I’m not winning on a technicality.”

He couldn’t stop grinning at her. “I’ve been told I’m pretty good.”

“So I’ve heard,” she said drily.

From inside the box in his hands, the rugger made a soft squeak.

“Though maybe we’ll wait a bit before we go back,” he said, glancing down. “Let the smell fade.”

She made a face. The rugger had managed to reach the top of the box and perched precariously on the rim. Mara gently scooped it back in again and replaced the lid. “What are we going do to with it?” she sighed. 

“We can figure out what to do with the rugger in the morning,” he said. He tucked the box under his arm and took her hand, winding her fingers through his. “Let’s go home.”


End file.
